


I Need You

by JEM1057



Category: No. 6 (Anime & Manga), No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 03:17:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13045377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JEM1057/pseuds/JEM1057
Summary: It's been a year since Nezumi left and in that time Shion's mental health has simply continued to decline in quality, it's gotten so bad that Shion is unsure if Nezumi was even real. Was he? And will reunion ever come?





	I Need You

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, just wanted to say that this is the first fanfic I've written in about five years so I beg you to be kind. I really like writing and so all kudos and comments would be so amazing. I hope you enjoy! :)

Sometimes he forgets how long it’s been. Sometimes he feels as if he can’t see. Sometimes he feels as if he can’t breathe. Sometimes everything is too much…

When it is, his mother always ends up finding him; picking him back up off of the floor and trying to help fix the mess that he has become, trying to place all the broken pieces back together in a way that he will be whole again. 

But it never works.

Panic attacks, PTSD, anxiety and a million others things that are seemingly now wrong with him…

He used to think ‘professional help’ was useful, that was before he saw dozens of therapists, before they simply added to the list of all the things that went into the ‘Shion’s diagnosed mental disorders’ cocktail and spouted useless, impossible advice to him, things like:

“Try to sort out any things at home that may be troubling you.”

Everything’s fine at home except for the fact that it never feels like it is his home… because he’s not there.

“Meet up with people who also experienced the manhunt.”

Great idea, it would definitely work, you know if any of the other people who had were alive. 

Sometimes he still thinks of it.

It haunts his dreams; that pile, mountain even. He remembers slipping; falling while climbing over the dead bodies of those that had been thrown in before him, the feeling of clambering over their cold, dead limbs, desperately trying to reach the top. He remembers the smell. And he remembers the only other living person that remembers it too.

“Fix issues in the relationships with the people who you love.”

How? How is he meant to do that when the one person he needs to see, needs to talk to most in the world, is gone and has been for nearly a year? How is he supposed to do anything? How can he help himself when every day all he wants to do is forget that everything exists? How can he help himself when he just wants to disappear because the pain of dying would be nothing compared to the pain of a life without him?

There is always one solitary problem with these ‘remedies’ that the therapists suggest.

He’s gone.

Shion can’t fix anything, because he can’t see him again, because he left. He, the cause of Shion’s life’s troubles is gone and Shion can’t find him, he can’t do anything. Sometimes, when it’s just him and Cravat he will remember him and he will smile, a soft, sweet smile of someone reminiscing of a love passed by. But then he feels the sweetness fall from his face, he feels the weight of the world crush him underneath it, he feels his eyes well with tears and he feels those tears fall down his face like a silent waterfall and he doesn’t stop. He sits there trembling with tiny cravat held tight in the palms of his hands, tears cascading down his face for hours upon hours and still he does not stop.

A couple of days ago he’d nearly lost Cravat too.

He understands that Cravat is old for a mouse but if he lost him, one of the only things he had left of Nezumi, he doesn’t know what he would do. If he didn’t have that reminder, he might not be able to make it.

He remembers their kiss, not the one Shion gave Nezumi before he left to try and save Safu, no, the one that Nezumi softly placed upon his lips as he left, simultaneously soaring the happiness in Shion’s heart to brand new, astounding levels and ripping it apart into such tiny fragments that it may never be able to be rebuilt.

When he had confronted Nezumi about the kiss, he had said no more goodbye kisses, Nezumi said that the kiss was a promise, a promise of reunion. He said ‘reunion will come’. 

But what if it doesn’t? 

What if he never sees Nezumi again before he dies? 

What if he never again sees his face? 

What if he never again gets to hear his voice? 

What if he doesn’t get another chance to feel those beautiful lips press against his own? 

These questions run rampant through his mind, clattering around his brain until he can think of nothing else. Nezumi is all he wants and so he is all that he thinks about. His want morphs to depression and that depression leads to anguish until he can do nothing but sob uncontrolled on the floor.

His life has good days and bad days… and today is one of the bad. 

He left work early, running out of the building as fast as possible, crying apologies at his co-workers on his way out before escaping to the mild comfort of his home immediately. As he slammed the door of his room shut he collapsed against it panting, his face flushed and red, eyes brimming with tears just waiting to fall, before slowly sliding down the door until he was sitting slumped against it. 

Cravat scampered over to him and he grabbed him, holding him close. He forced himself to stand only so that he could fall onto his bed, curling in on himself under his covers with the tiny creature still cradled in his hands. 

The near loss of him had been too much, it was just another reminder that everything that he had had with Nezumi was quickly fading away with time, it was nearly the loss of the only source of happiness in his otherwise traumatised life.

Just the thought of it was stressing him again; he felt his eyes welling with tears; he felt his throat seize up; he felt his body tremble.

He couldn’t breathe.

He needed air!

He jolted up, placed Cravat down on his table, the little mouse squeaking feverishly in worry, he ran out, through open the balcony doors and stumbled through them, placing his hands on the balcony railing. Gasping for air he looked up at the sky. It was clouded, simply a swirling mass of grey, indicating the storm to come.

It felt as if someone had grabbed his head and was crushing it within giant hands, compressing his brain, there was so much tension.

He couldn’t stand it anymore.

He couldn’t stand anything anymore.

He threw his head backwards, hands firmly clenched onto the railing, and he roared. He felt the scream reverberate through his body, felt it rise through him. It echoed off the surrounding buildings and came back to him, the sound filling the air, only mildly quietened by the quick winds that had picked up since he first came outside. He continued his scream for what felt like forever, visions of everything that had happened since he first cried out from his balcony so long ago, on his twelfth birthday, rushing through his mind.

The visions berated him, memories crashing around his conscious mind, pushing him to collapse down onto the floor, wind coming at him from seemingly all sides causing his hair to fly around him in a white cloud. As he fell to his knees and lowered his head his scream finally drifted away and ended. His throat was course and he suddenly heard the sound of something shifting behind him, from the side of the balcony, next to the door to his room. He flipped his head around as quickly as he possibly could, his hair flying over his face as he did so.

And there he was.

Just standing there.

Leaning against Shion’s wall as if he had never left him, as if nothing had ever happened. His usual bravado still intact, the same silver eyes staring at him.

Nezumi was back.

Shion still couldn’t get up; couldn’t force himself to stand. This had happened before. He’d see Nezumi there. He’s sob and run into his arms. But when he did, Nezumi wasn’t really there. He never had been. It always made him question what was real when that happened.

Was everything a lie?

He knew his mother lied to him sometimes to help make him feel better, to keep him sane. Is that all Nezumi ever was, a lie, a figment of his imagination that his family had just gone along with?

And so he sat there and he stared at him, his eyes wide and his tears drying, resigned that if this time was a lie, the same as all the others, he would stop crying. He would stop caring. If Nezumi was just a lie then what was the point in being sad?

It wouldn’t do him any good to care.

Caring hurt.

Caring made his heart ache so bad it felt as if it was being ripped from his chest.

Caring destroyed him every day.

But maybe this second wasn’t the right time to stop caring.

Maybe he needed to wait, to hold onto his hope for one last encounter.

Because maybe this one would be the one, the one that was real. 

And if it wasn’t then he would accept his losses.

He would wipe his tears and he would walk away.

But for the next few seconds he would let himself hold onto his hope, and so he looked up again and there was the smirk looking back at him.

The smirk that was branded in his mind.

The smirk that he prayed he hadn’t just made up.

“I guess some things never change, huh?” Nezumi said, his voice the only sound to be heard through the harsh wind. He held out a hand to Shion and when he grabbed it, it was real. It stayed. And that one real hand was joined by another and together they pulled him up off the floor, pulled him out of the abyss. And they didn’t let go.

“I missed you.”

The words cut through Shion’s senses like a knife.

He was here; he was real; he had missed him and he was holding him.

And all of a sudden the tears were back, his eyes welling once more.

“I-I missed you too.” He stammered out, tears streaking down his face, creating intricate river patterns across his cheeks; and the hands holding him weren’t enough anymore.

He threw himself at Nezumi, burying his face into Nezumi’s chest as Nezumi’s arms wound tightly around him.

“I t-thought you weren’t coming back.” He sobbed out, voice muffled into Nezumi’s chest, barely audible over the storm that swirled around them.

Nezumi took his face into his hands and lifted it to meet Shion’s eyes, silver meeting red. He lowered his face and lightly touched his lips to Shion’s. It was a soft kiss, one of reunion.

“Wh-why did you come back?” Shion asked, looking up at him once they had separated their lips.

“I promised remember, and, even if I hadn’t, how could I stay away?” Nezumi asked gazing down at him, eyes filled with something that neither of their words had fully expressed yet, his thumb softly running over the scar that adorned Shion’s otherwise flawless skin, his hand resting on Shion’s face, before leaning down and pressing his lips to Shion’s one more time…

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to convey the feeling of each of the characters throughout different parts of this, Shion through most of the piece but also Nezumi toward the end and his opinions of Shion in turn. That's why particularly at the start it might seem hectic and chaotic as I was trying to emphasize Shion's mental unbalance without directly writing the whole story from his point of view. I hope I managed to show that even a little bit. Hope you enjoyed :) (Also I might end up editing this in the morning because my last edit was pretty rushed.)


End file.
